A committee of Slidell City Council members working on the city's budget behind closed doors in recent months did not violate Louisiana's open meetings law because the four-member panel was never formally created by the council as a whole, according to a legal opinion issued by the City Council's attorney. In the future, a budget committee must be formed by a council ordinance, and the committee would then be required to meet in public, attorney Bryan Haggerty wrote in a memo last week.

City Council President Lionel Hicks previously told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune that he and three other council members were meeting as a "formal" budget committee -- but those gatherings were not being held in public.

In response, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune pointed to a Louisiana Attorney General's opinion in 2009 concerning committee meetings. The Attorney General's Office found that a committee formed by the St. Tammany Parish Council's president to address jail issues had to meet in public.

But under Slidell's code, the council president alone does not have the authority to create a committee, and therefore the group organized by Hicks was not an actual public body under the law, Haggerty wrote. Meanwhile, the four members did not constitute a quorum of the nine-member City Council, he said.

"There was no intent by members of the City Council to circumvent the open meetings law," Haggerty said. "In fact, the efforts of the referenced committee were discussed at public hearings held by the full City Council, subject to public participation, input and discussion."

Hicks said this week that he plans to discuss the issue with Haggerty before any decision is made on whether to introduce an ordinance creating a budget committee. He said the council intends to operate within the law.

"I don't have any problem at all hashing out the budget woes in public," Hicks said. "I don't think either me or any of my colleagues have anything to hide as far as letting the public know what we're discussing, number one, and number two, being part of the process."

Council members Bill Borchert,
Joe Fraught and Jay Newcomb were the other members of the committee.

For the 2014 fiscal year, millage rates would be cut slightly from 26.56 mills to 25.89 mills, which represents a reduction in the debt service millage rate, according to city officials. Property taxes would generate an estimated $5.9 million. But sales taxes represent the heftiest chunk of Slidell's coffers -- an estimated $17.5 million or 42 percent of the budget. That projection is essentially the same as the current year's estimate, city officials have said.